Unfair Reality
by Prosper-the-XVIII
Summary: M didn't die at Skyfall, but the consequences of that one bullet were almost as sinister. She has to come to terms with what is now her life almost overnight, and now she's not M either. But what if it isn't her that's having trouble dealing with it but James?


There are certain rules regarding life that life itself makes up. For example, if there's a good and a bad way for something to work out, it will turn towards the latter. There is no such thing as happy endings.

Regarding a certain Mr Bond, the notion of a happy ending was almost as alien as the idea of staying with a girl whose initials weren't V.L for more than one night.

There really was only one woman who really mattered anything more to him than sex, and that woman now was inches from death, gripping life with her fingernails, and all thanks to him. Of course, Vesper had mattered to him. As had for a period, Fields. And Camille. Likewise Eve and Severine. But once the dust had settled and he had realized that no way in hell were they going to come back, even if they ever got the oppertunity - which only Eve ever would, being the only one still alive - he had simply gotten on with life.

And then gone on to single-handedly ruined his boss's.

This guilty tidal wave of thought struck him painfully as he made the realization that what had been M's room in the Perth Infirmary for the past fortnight was empty. Bed stripped. Door open. No bleeping machines, IV drips or any of the other medical nonsense that had occupied it for almost as long as the woman in question herself. And no comatose M.

It had terrified the crap out of him. Surely she wasn't...But it seemed apparent. Whilst he hadn't been there, her fight for life had stopped, the darkness had consumed her and she was gone now for good. Life was being increduosuly unfair to him at present moment in time; he had thought he'd lost her at Skyfall, she had come so close to death on so may occasions and now cruel nightmare was harsh reality.

"She was transferred to Stoke Mandeville last night," James looked round, his mouth still agape and tears pricking his eyes and treatening to fall as the gravity of the current situation hit him full impact, and noticed the British Intelligence Chairman, Gareth Mallory behind him, arm still supported in a sling, the man himself just as appalingly dressed as usual in a grey shirt and knitted tie in eye-wateringly clashing shades of mossy green and somewhat piss-coloured tie.

Breathing out heavily through his nose, James pivoted on the ball of his foot so he was eye-to-lower-lip with the somewhat taller man, so annoyed by his mere presence and at the same time terrified and angusied at the notion of M's death that Mallory might as well have been rabbiting about his favourite episode of Spongebob Squarepants in Bengali. Glaring at Mallory's naturally smug yet oddly sympathetic expression, he muttered; "What the bloody hell are you doing here?"  
"Same as you. I just said that Elanor was transferred to Stoke Mandeville hospital overnight."  
"Evelyn," James growled through his teeth. Mallory wasn't going to get away with embarassing M by attempting to use her name and getting it so wrong should she be mercifully still alive, nor would he let him insult her memory in that way should the worst have happened. "Her name was- is Evelyn. And it's M to you."  
"I'm afraid it it no longer M to me, you or anyone else. My apologies for confusing her first name, however. After the whole fiasco with Silva, it's a miracle she wasn't sacked and given her current state, she's going to have to throw in the towel anyway..."  
"What happened to her?" James was perhaps more angry with Mallory than he had any right to be, though the man was simply the unfortunate breaker of bad news. Though he now knew for sure that M was alive - thankbloodyGod - he was terrified. Things had been said by others and then overheard by the master spy; he had heard that there had been a chance of her suffering a brain haemorrhege due to blood loss. What if that had heppened? Though he had known always that whilst she was M, she wasn't superhuman and things such as dementia or other such conditions that affected people of roughly her age had always been a slight possibility, but now that the thought that she was, in a word, retarded was real, he was killing himself with a sense of unfathomable panic.

"007, have you listened to anything I just said"  
"Not really, no."  
Mallory face-palmed, turning to James like a father announcing the death of a much-loved pet to his son. "007, I told you three times now that she's been moved to Stoke Mandeville - that's where the Paralympics were founded; they specialize in spinal injuries. I'm sorry I have to tell you this, but the bullet partially severed her spinal cord; there's no way they can do anything to turn back the damage without making things worse or ultimately killing her. Whether she likes it or not, she's going to have to give up MI6 because..." Mallory couldn't bring himself to finish.  
"So...she's paralyzed?"  
"I'm sorry. From the waist down. Her hospital switch is more for rehab than anything else. The chances of her ever walking again are less than one in a thousand, so she's going to have to adapt to using a wheelchair."  
"But-" The fear in James's voice was enough to tear anyone apart. He was almost sure that M would sooner be dead than have to live the rest of her life in the way she was now going to have to.  
"If there's anything they could do, it's been done already. I'm sorry..."

TO BE CONTINUED...

* * *

**Sorry, I didn't want to bore you with a long author's note at the start. I figured that this could lose me my entire fanbase, but I decided to take that chance. Should I update, delete or leave the rest to your imaginations? R&R would be appriciated :)**


End file.
